


Withdrawal Was the Weeping

by QuickedWeen



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Biting, Blood Drinking, Edwardian Period, Exhibitionism, F/F, Face-Sitting, Girl Direction, Historical, Masturbation, Pastoral, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Senses, Smut, Thunderstorms, Vampire Louis, Vampires, but not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 07:28:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19763425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickedWeen/pseuds/QuickedWeen
Summary: Confined by life and society, Harry spends her Sunday afternoons walking aimlessly about the countryside as it's her only source of freedom. One Sunday she is aided by the most beautiful woman she has ever met, but not everything is as it seems. Was it a trick of the light? Was it Harry's own active imagination? There is nothing to do but try to find her again.





	Withdrawal Was the Weeping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [disgruntledkittenface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgruntledkittenface/gifts).



> "This one time, I saw a [tumblr post](https://wendybirdprompts.tumblr.com/post/184311283616/me-wearing-nothing-but-a-sheer-plunge-neck) and it turned into a smutty girl direction fic..." 
> 
> This is for Maggie - I'm sorry it took so long.
> 
> A million thanks to Tabby for betaing, and as always, Emmy and Sus.
> 
> Title from "Would That I" by Hozier

**_Somewhere in the Countryside, 1910_ **

Harry quite liked to walk. Oftentimes, she would spend her days off wandering around, exploring the roads that wove throughout the village and to the villages beyond. 

Her mother frequently chastised her for showing up with mud caking her boots and the hem of her dress, pointing out that she had long since outgrown her plain muslin day dresses so they were too short and didn’t reach the ground, which meant getting them dirty was a particular feat.

She couldn’t help it. Spending her days as the companion to a gentlewoman who was older than the whole British Empire was driving Harry mad. She wasn’t meant to be cooped up inside, she was meant to be _free._

At twenty-one she was well on her way to being a spinster if she kept this up—another complaint of her mother’s. Boys from the village that she had known her whole life proposed all the time, but she never accepted any of them. There was a whole world beyond the village that she constantly read about in the books she found at her employment. If she married a boy from the village she would be stuck there for certain and would never get to see it.

Sundays after church were Harry’s favorite time to walk. Her mother always felt a little bit better about the salvation of Harry’s soul after they went to church so she was more lackadaisical in her supervision. 

This particular Sunday afternoon, Harry was feeling restless. Another week had passed, trapped in the manor with nothing to do except watch the old woman sleep. She stopped first at the bookshop in town. The owner typically wasn’t open on Sundays, but he would leave a parcel for Harry to pick up partially because Harry was his only customer that bought any of the horrid novels that he stocked. She _loved_ them even though they were out of fashion now; vampires, werewolves, various creatures of the night. They were so beautifully dramatic.

Book in hand, she continued down the lane, walking aimlessly and reading the whole way. It wasn’t the best for paying attention to where she was, but eventually she would reach a landmark and then she could turn around to head home.

The werewolf pack had just trapped a woman in their foresty dungeon when Harry’s world went topsy-turvy. The softened ground underneath her feet had eroded and she tripped, her loose footing sending her tumbling into a ditch in the road.

“Ah!” she cried out, breaking the relative silence of the afternoon. As she sat up and took stock of herself, she could tell she was covered in dirt. “Drat.”

She carefully closed her book brushing the specks off the cover from where it had fallen next to her in the road. Planting her hand on the soggy ground, she pushed up and tried to stand before her ankle gave out and she promptly cried out in pain. 

Double drat.

Harry reached her hand out to press against the solid leather of her boot and was met with more pain, this time a dull ache. She tried to stand up a few more times before slumping in defeat.

Laying back in the middle of the dirt road, she studied the white fluffy clouds in the expansive blue sky trying to decide how she would possibly make it back home. 

Not that she particularly wanted to go home.

If she was stuck there in the middle of the road until someone happened to walk or ride by, at least she could be comfortable. Harry took a deep breath and twisted her arm behind her past the point of comfort to fiddle with the light muslin of her dress. She had to work through the outer fabric, but if she could… just… reach... 

Her fingers found purchase on one of the cotton lacings of her corset and she tugged. She was terrible at tying her stays in the first place, so they gave way at least an inch allowing her to breathe.

“Are you alright?”

Harry startled, which she was sure looked extremely inelegant from her place on the ground. When she craned her neck to see who was speaking to her, her blasted stays stopped her from turning all the way around.

“Erm,” she was visibly struggling, and could hear the owner of the voice step into view. “Maybe not…”

The woman who appeared before her was breathtakingly beautiful. Her dress was a deep burgundy muslin, and Harry was fairly certain she wasn’t wearing stays from the way her torso moved as she bent down to help Harry up off the ground. The woman’s hair was cropped short to her head, unstyled. If she had taken the time to style it, Harry could only imagine it would look like the more daring new cuts from Paris that she had seen drawn in the magazines.

“Come on, then. Lean on me.”

Harry gratefully took her hand and stood up, favoring her good foot. The woman faltered for a moment as she drew in a sharp breath through her nose.

“Thank you,” Harry replied as she leaned into the woman’s arm a little more. Curiously, the woman’s skin felt cool under the muslin, even in this sunshine. 

“Not a problem.” The woman’s voice sounded more strangled than it had a moment ago. She led Harry over to a small section of stone wall that wasn’t far away. The silence that had fallen between them was unexpected. Harry really hated to be a bother, and she hoped she hadn’t offended the woman in some way.

Once Harry was seated on the wall, the woman stepped back. Her brow was furrowed and she was looking at Harry with what could only be described as a grimace.

Her intense scrutiny made Harry nervous, and she could do nothing more than stare right back.

“Does anyone know you’re here?” the woman asked, her voice gruff and direct.

“Oh, um, no. I’m not really sure where _here_ is myself,” Harry explained.

The woman’s expression softened as she studied Harry, but when the breeze shifted her shoulders stiffened again.

“Where are you from?”

“Tarnstowe.” 

The woman blanched at the name of Harry’s village. “That’s near on four miles from here.”

Harry shrugged. Her walks frequently took her far from home, but she always made her way back. 

The breeze picked up again and Harry watched as the woman’s nostrils flared with the movement. Tendrils of Harry's hair fell into her face obstructing her view, and she could only imagine what the state of it was after her fall. She reached up and pulled at the pins, letting it fall completely out of alignment.

With nothing better to do other than sit there on the wall, Harry began to comb it out with her fingers and re-braid it.

“Are you alright on your own for the time being?” the woman asked.

Harry looked up and met her gaze, but was surprised to see that her irises had darkened from the light crystal blue they had been to a deep navy, almost black. She was slowly stepping backwards away from Harry’s seat on the wall.

“Yes, thank you.”

The woman gave her one last look before she turned, leaving Harry completely alone. 

“Wait! Where are you—” Harry choked on the rest of her sentence as the woman turned back sharply.

“I’m sending for someone to take you home,” she bit out harshly, her words carried only by the wind. She tried to turn back around, but she wasn’t fast enough. Because there, in full daylight, in the afternoon sun, Harry saw the bright light glint off the edge of the woman’s teeth.

Her extraordinarily long, pointed canines. They had _not_ been that long the whole time.

Stuck on the wall, unable to run away, Harry’s heart rate picked up. The blood pounded through her veins as she frantically cycled through fear and fascination and doubt at a rapid-fire pace.

The woman couldn’t possibly be a vampire like in one of Harry’s stories. Or a werewolf. Such things weren’t possible, they were stories.

Her teeth didn’t grow, they had been the same length the whole time. Harry was in pain, she was hysterical, she was imagining things. Surely.

Dumbfounded, Harry watched as the woman kept walking away from where she was bound to the wall, down a path and through the trees. Harry squinted through the lush vegetation and could just barely make out a manor down the path. That must be where the woman lived.

Harry wasn’t sure if she had ever been down this particular road before, but she probably had at some point, and she never knew there was a house back there. No one would have been able to see it from the road if they weren’t looking for it. Idly, Harry wondered where the main drive leading up to it was, because the narrow path the woman was walking down did not look large enough for a carriage.

Though her nerves were eating away at her, Harry knew she was in for a wait until help arrived either from whoever this woman called or from another traveler on the road, so she tried to pick up her book to read.

She had forgotten, though, that she left off at the most perilous point in the story where the werewolves were holding a damsel in distress hostage. Feeling entirely too exposed, Harry slammed the book shut.

Stranded there on the wall with the distinct possibility of being eaten by a vampire at any moment, Harry’s nerves were beginning to fray by the time she heard the tell-tale hollow clops of a horse coming down the road. 

She was awash with relief but still cautious as the carriage pulled up next to her and stopped. The driver was an entirely unremarkable footman with no distinct uniform, but given the way the lady had been dressed she couldn’t say she was that surprised.

“M’lady says I'm to give you a ride home,” he said in a gruff voice. 

Harry agreed reluctantly, "Well, I suppose that's my only option."

"You should be very grateful. My lady is generous to do this for you."

Harry climbed up onto the seat and sat down next to him while he picked up the reins and gave a tug to spurn the horses into moving again.

The entire four mile ride back home to Tarnstowe, Harry couldn't stop thinking about the mysterious woman in the hidden manor. Had she really seen what she thought she had seen? There was no way to tell.

When Harry returned home that evening, the footman insisted on dropping her right at her front door despite appearances. Her mother lambasted her for the state of her dress and for her twisted ankle and for being dropped off by a strange man as though it was all somehow Harry's fault. To be fair, she had been the one reading and not paying attention to where she was going in the first place she supposed.

Thinking about it later, Harry found that she didn't trust her own mind. Over and over again she continued to question what she had seen. The extension of the woman’s teeth could have been a product of the angle. Had her eyes changed? Likely it was just a trick of the sunlight. Harry had no way to know what was real and what was hallucination.

The rush of exhilaration Harry experienced that afternoon, the way it made her body feel, was different from anything she had ever experienced before and it was certainly the most interesting thing that had happened in her life.

That night, after her family had gone to sleep, Harry stripped down from the more formal dress she changed into for dinner and lowered herself into a steaming hot bath the maid had drawn for her. Her muscles had grown stiffer over the course of the day after her fall and she knew the warmth of the water would help her relieve the soreness.

She leaned her head against the lip of the copper bottom tub and let her eyes drift shut as she turned everything that had happened over in her mind.

Her eyes drifted shut, and she could remember the awe she felt when she first saw the woman standing there with her shift pulled taut against her skin. Harry had been able to tell from the freedom with which she moved that the woman hadn’t been wearing any stays. Freedom of movement was a growing trend with cosmopolitan women, but Harry knew there was no way anyone in her village would allow that to become widespread, it was much too inappropriate. Just like the way the woman had worn her hair cropped up above her shoulders.

Harry couldn’t believe that she had actually seen the natural curve of the woman’s body, that she had felt her skin through the fabric, or that the skin itself was so curiously cool to the touch.

She thought about how close she had been to her. Standing right next to someone who was a potential vampire, if what Harry had seen was to be believed. Her thoughts were spinning as she recalled the way her blood had spiked when she felt the flash of danger. Her fear had been gone in an instant, but her heart had raced for another hour or so at least.

Harry shifted under the water as she felt a naughty, involuntary pulse between her legs.

Whenever she had explored her body before—there was much freedom to be found in a tucked away meadow and a scadalously erotic novel—the stimulus had always come from something else like an illustration of a princess at the mercy of a knight or the description from the scene on the page before her. Never before had she been so affected by her own mind and conscious memories.

Harry only hesitated a moment before she lifted her hand from where it lolled off the lip of the tub and brought it down to let her fingers trail across the tops of her breasts where the water line danced along her skin.

Laying her hand flat, she let it brush over her right nipple catching each and every ridge made by the spaces between her fingers. It was nowhere near enough stimulation for what she craved but it made both her nipples tighten. She took a deep breath, forcing her rib cage to expand and causing just her nipples to lift and breach the top of the water. When they hit the chill of the night air, they tensed and puckered the rest of the way until they were so tight they ached.

She could feel the radiating warmth of her core as she lowered herself back down in the water until she was fully submerged once again.

All Harry had to do was cast her mind back to the exhilarating feeling that flooded her when she first thought the woman might be something more dangerous than she first imagined. 

Harry had been stuck there. Sitting on the wall. Helpless. The woman could have done anything she wanted to Harry. 

She skimmed her hand down the pale skin of her stomach letting her fingers lead until they were under the water and she had pushed far enough that she reached her center. She needed something, anything to relieve the ache in her body.

The woman could have gripped Harry’s arms in her hands, lifted her up, or out of care for Harry’s ankle, pressed her cool porcelain palms to the contrasting warm skin of Harry’s arms and lowered Harry against the stone. Dragged her lips to her neck. Released her fangs. Pierced the skin. 

She could have drawn blood from Harry. Her _life force._

Harry cupped her fingers against herself, rubbing with a feather-light touch the way she had discovered for the first time a few years earlier. She liked to start out slow, just barely stimulating her body until the tension in her grew and grew and she couldn’t help but furiously finish herself off.

The water sloshed around her and she bit down fiercely on her lip to keep herself from crying out and waking the rest of the household. 

Her pace quickened as she strummed her fingers with practiced ease. In her mind, she reached out a hand to smooth over the softness of the woman’s body, loose and pliable without stays in the way. Harry traced the natural, pointed shape of the woman’s breasts, watched the way her nipples stiffened under the fabric in the afternoon breeze.

Lost in her mind’s eye, she let the woman lay her out in the meadow where she usually escaped to do this, this time letting the woman take the lead instead. The woman reached her own hand down to play with Harry; her hand and Harry’s hand became one in the same.

Harry focused her mind’s eye on what she had read about vampires and the rush of pleasure that supposedly came with their bite. All it took was once again imagining the woman piercing the delicate skin of her neck, and Harry was sent soaring through her release.

Out of sheer exhaustion she brought her hands up and let them rest over the sides again as she leaned her head back and sank further into the water. 

Now that she was no longer focused on other things, she noticed that the water was barely lukewarm and it was on the precipice of getting cold. She let herself bask in the ripples of her release for another moment or so before quickly washing herself. 

When her ablutions were finished, she climbed out, checked to make sure her hair was still pinned up, and wrapped herself in her dressing gown before darting down the hall to her bedroom.

Her family wasn’t wealthy by any means, and she was lucky in that the money for her employment mostly went towards her own pocket money for clothing and such. Before her sister Gemma had been married and left home, they had shared a set of connected rooms so privacy was an illusion.

She supposed now she didn’t really need to escape to the washroom to explore herself and her body when she was at home, but it was what she was used to, and her routine in the winter especially when her meadow wasn’t an option.

When she climbed under her coverlet later that night, her thoughts were swirling around the woman.

Harry had never seen nor heard of her before, and she might never see her again. As she drifted off to sleep, she tried to ignore the twisting in her stomach when she considered that possibility.

It had been six days since Harry had fallen into the ditch in the road and been rescued by the mysterious woman with the manor house that didn’t exist.

Well, it did exist, but Harry had never seen it. And that was what needed to change. 

The week had been absolutely hellish. Her employment was so dreary and dull that Harry could barely make herself pay attention to what the old bat was saying half the time.

Harry’s voice was unusually slow and fairly deep and monotone for a young lady her age, but as the week progressed she was reading faster and faster, willing time to speed up with the sound of it.

All she had gotten was grumbled complaints from her charge.

It hadn’t taken Harry very much time at all to decide that she needed to try and find the manor again. There was just something about the woman that she couldn’t shake. Mostly, Harry wanted to try and determine if the woman really was a vampire or if what Harry had seen had been a figment of her imagination.

If it was a vision, hallucination, or the like, then there wasn’t any harm in Harry seeking her out.

If it _wasn’t_ a vision… Harry squeezed her legs together tightly where she sat and cleared her throat in the middle of the passage of scripture she had been reading aloud.

The second she was dismissed she ran home to prepare for the next day. She picked out her outfit for church as she always did, but she also set out another frock. One to wear later in the day when she went exploring again. This frock was tied at the back on top of her stays, which meant it had a little bit of extra room.

When she went looking for the woman, she was going to try to go without her corset as she had seen the woman do the prior week.

A thrill zipped through her when she thought about walking around in the open air with just her muslin frock to hide her from view. 

Being naked out in the countryside was nothing new for her, but this time she was going to be walking on the roads where anyone could see. 

She wasn’t entirely brave enough to go without her jacket, but she would try to walk without it.

The next morning in church, Harry was vibrating in her seat. She couldn’t concentrate on the service, constantly squirming in her seat and fidgeting, thinking instead about what she was going to be doing that afternoon.

Her mother sent her scathing looks every few minutes to try and quell her behavior, and she would calm down for a moment before she thought about it again, and would have to shift her hips to ease the pressure she could feel building at her core.

When the service finished, Harry’s heart rate tripped before it picked up speed. She did her best to measure her steps the whole way home so as to not let on to her mother how eager she was to get out of the house.

They linked arms for the walk home, and Harry tried to put on a casual air.

“I think I’ll go walking to town this afternoon, mother.”

Her mother sighed, but Harry knew it was just for show. “If you must. While you’re out why don’t you pick up some bread from the bakery. We’re almost out.”

Harry hummed in agreement as they turned the corner of the lane to enter their garden. She again fought her instinct to take her naturally long strides and leave her mother in her wake.

As quickly as she could, Harry raced upstairs and began the process of taking off her church dress. Layer after layer came off, and normally she neatly folded each garment, but that day she hadn’t the patience.

Finally her hands hit her corset. Before she could think too much about it she reached around and grabbed the laces to start untying them. Inch by inch the garment loosened. Harry usually didn’t rid herself of the wretched thing until night time when she prepared to go to bed, so to be without her undergarments in the middle of the day with daylight streaming through the window was thrilling.

When her corset was discarded on the bed, she reached for her muslin shift that she had picked out purposefully the night before. If she tied the dress tight enough, no one should be able to tell that she was naked underneath.

She shimmied into the dress and the light cotton was a foreign texture against these newly exposed parts of her skin. It hung loose on most of her body except where her corset usually nipped in her waist, there it was just a bit tight. Harry quickly tied up the back to secure it.

The fabric was slightly more voluminous around her breasts, but hugged her tightly right under them around her rib cage and her waist. She turned this way and that in her mirror to scrutinize her shape, making sure the fabric on top camouflaged the more natural shape of her breasts. Once she was satisfied that it did, she tipped more into admiration, turning this way and that to learn her natural curves.

Harry slowly dragged a hand over the fabric, creating friction over her nipple until it stood to attention. She still couldn’t see it through the material. 

Taking a few deep breaths, she pulled on her jacket and fastened it for the time being. She still had her shiniest, nicest boots on from church and they clicked in a satisfying way as she descended the stairs. She said goodbye to her mother and soon enough she was free. 

Harry knew the general direction she had taken the week before so this time she set out at a much more determined pace. She knew it was about four miles away, knew how they got home. She should be able to find it again without issue.

An hour and a half later, Harry was beginning to lose hope. She thought she was going the right way, but hadn’t seen anything yet that looked familiar, and now she was four miles away from home. 

Shadow slowly blanketed the road and Harry peered up at the sky that had taken on a slightly more ominous gray tone than when she first set out. Clouds were beginning to roll in, which meant she would be not only lost, but she would also definitely get caught in the rain.

Harry refused to let disappointment settle in her chest. She had set out to find the woman who saved her, and she was going to succeed.

As soon as she set her chin and determinedly began marching on, the heavens opened up. She quickly crossed the road and took shelter under a nearby tree with dense branches. The sky had turned from a worrying gray to a dense, black covering of clouds. Rain fell in thick, heavy drops. This was no pleasant spring shower.

Almost immediately the shelter provided by the trees was not enough to protect Harry and the rain began soaking through her dress.

When she had made the decision to go without stays, she never considered the possibility of rain. 

The water spread, soaking through the muslin and plastering the fabric to Harry’s skin. She had never felt anything like it before, wet fabric, chilly from the breeze, slowly forming to the natural shape of her breasts as it got heavier and heavier, weighed down by the rain and unimpeded by the structure of her stays.

She watched as the fabric became translucent and the shadow of her nipples appeared underneath it, brought to attention by the brisk new sensations.

Harry could feel the weight of her hair, could feel the chill in the air magnified by the water. She was already soaked beyond repair, she might as well embrace it.

Leaving the sanctuary of her tree on the side of the road, she turned to continue in the direction she had been walking. She should have gotten discouraged as soon as it started raining, she should have turned around and gone home, but all of Harry’s thoughts were centered around the tightening of her nipples. 

She was walking down the middle of the street practically naked with her breasts completely on display. Nothing had ever felt so invigorating. 

Harry was so wrapped up in this new feeling and squinting her eyes against the torrential downpour that she almost tripped and fell in the same exact ditch she had the week before. Only this time it was a puddle, filled to the brim with water.

Everything was the same, the ditch, the stone wall where she waited for help, the gravel, the trees. Harry’s gaze turned sharply to the left where the woman had disappeared up a path the week before. Harry had been able to make out the vague roof of a manor through the trees before, but she could see next to nothing through the rain.

The sky had grown even darker and Harry could hear the far off rumble of thunder that was growing closer by the moment. 

Before she could second guess herself, she started up the path toward the manor. On the one hand, Harry couldn’t believe the lengths she was going to investigate someone that had fascinated her to no end. On the other hand, she had been so completely enthralled by this woman that she spent almost every waking moment thinking about her for the past seven days. She needed to see this through for her own sanity. She needed to know. 

The rain continued to seep through her clothing as she ascended the path. She could do this, she was a damsel in distress. 

When she reached the steps, she took a deep breath before bringing her hand up to clasp the icy metal of the knocker and tap it forcefully against the plate on the door. The noise was weighty and satisfying. There was no way the household could ignore that.

Harry cleared her throat. “Help me, please!” she pleaded at the door. She thought she might have heard some footsteps but it could very well have been thunder that still continued to rumble as dusk began to settle over the trees.

“Help!” she called again.

The front door was ripped open by a middle aged man. It hadn’t occurred to Harry until that very moment that the vampire could live with someone. If she even was a vampire, Harry still wasn’t sure it hadn’t been a figment of her imagination.

“Come in, come in,” the man said alarmingly as he gestured for Harry to enter. He showed her quickly to the parlor where there was a fire blazing, but didn’t invite her to sit down. Most likely in deference to the ornate furniture that was nothing like Harry had ever seen before. He was also entirely too professional to glance down at her body or comment on the state of her dress. Or undress as it were.

Harry stood next to the fire and held her hands out to the blaze. She must have been colder than she thought because she slowly felt her digits as they began to thaw.

“What the devil is going—” the woman entered the parlor in a rush, draped in another simple gown. Harry only got the briefest of glances in the confusion but she was sure the woman was going without stays again. 

“You,” the woman whispered.

 _Damsel in distress._ Harry hiccoughed a sob and tried to make it believable. “I’m so sorry. I got lost again and then I got caught in the rain and I didn’t know what else to do so when I saw your manor I approached.”

Silence reigned interrupted only by the crackling of the fire as the butler slipped out of the parlor. The woman stood very still as she watched Harry warm her hands.

She scrutinized Harry for another moment before her demeanor shifted abruptly and she began to close the distance between them, dancing around the furniture gracefully without looking, like a tendril of smoke. “Of course, pet. It was the only thing you could do, getting caught in the rain like that.”

Harry watched her get closer and closer as the air slowly began to seep out of the room. The woman’s gaze had turned predatory and she began encroaching on Harry’s space. Harry tried not to look too pleased.

“Now that we’ve come across each other twice now, you may as well introduce yourself,” the woman stood casually with her hands clasped in front of her torso as she studied Harry.

“I’m Harry,” she said with a shaky voice as she let her hands drop into her sopping wet skirts. She took the opportunity to feign modesty and she flicked her eyes toward the ground and dropped into a small curtsy. In her field of vision she could see that her dress was still practically translucent and her breasts were rather brazenly on display.

When she stood back up she lifted her rib cage slightly to make her breasts even more prominent and made eye contact with the woman again.

“Aren’t you a pretty thing?” the woman replied. “I’m Lady Tomlinson, but you may call me Louis.”

Harry sucked in a breath. “It’s nice to meet you again.”

“Again,” Louis trailed off.

An eerie silence once again descended as Louis pierced Harry with her gaze. A small part of Harry relished the attention and awareness tingled across the surface of her skin. She involuntarily shivered, but it was in no part due to her sopping wet dress. 

There was no way for Louis to know that, though, so she closed the distance between them, reaching for a throw blanket that the butler had laid out on top of the settee.

“Oh you poor thing. Come here, love, let’s get you warm.” Louis wrapped the blanket around Harry’s shoulders and drew her in close to her body. The skin of her hand did nothing to warm Harry as it was cool to the touch, just like it had been the week before.

Louis leaned in under the guise of adjusting the blanket and Harry heard the faintest inhale of breath. When she was done Louis gripped the edges of the blanket and turned Harry’s body so they were facing each other.

Harry’s lungs burned as Louis searched her gaze before reaching her hand up to Harry’s face. Ever so delicately, Louis dragged the back of her knuckle down Harry’s cheek.

“You live in Tarnstowe, isn’t that what you said, pet?”

Harry could scarcely breathe, so she nodded.

“Well…” Louis trailed off as she let her hand drop down and caress along the outside of Harry’s arm. Harry could feel it even through the thick wool of the blanket. “That just won’t do. You can’t possibly go back there tonight in this storm.”

A slow smirk bloomed on Louis’ face. “You must stay here with me.”

Harry bit her lip to keep herself from smiling in triumph. Surely if she stayed the night she would be able to learn something about this fascinating woman.

She cleared her throat. “Are you sure that’s alright?”

Louis rubbed her arm again. “Of course. It’s just me all alone in this great big house. There’s plenty of room for you to stay. What would your mother say if I let you go out in this rain? You would catch your death.”

Harry dipped a little curtsy again as Louis reached up to pull the bell. Her hand had scarcely touched the pull before the butler and housekeeper both arrived in the doorway.

“Have a room drawn up for this poor dear and see if you can’t fetch her a night gown. She’s to stay the night with us. One of my old ones will be too short but at least we can get her out of those wet clothes.”

Harry’s heart stuttered at the direct order for her to stay the night. It was the polite thing to do of course, but there was always the possibility Louis would turn her back out again despite everything she had said.

The housekeeper reached her arms out to Harry to imply she should cross the room, and as soon as Harry began to go to her she missed the comfort of Louis’ overwhelming presence, even though it also scared her slightly.

She was shown to an empty room upstairs where there was already a nightgown laid out on the bed waiting for her. It was sleeveless, meant to be under a robe of some kind, made of luxurious silk and lace and finer than anything Harry had ever owned in her entire life. 

The housekeeper moved to help her disrobe and Harry almost let her before she rushed to cover herself with her hands, remembering her lack of undergarments.

“It’s alright, love, I’ve seen it all before,” the housekeeper said brusquely.

Harry loosened her arms where they were wrapped around her chest, and the housekeeper efficiently helped her out of all of her wet clothes, not bothering to remark on her state of undress. She took the clothes and left Harry standing in the middle of the room next to the bed, naked save her socks and shoes with naught to put on but the fine nightgown.

“Well then,” she said aloud. She leaned down to unlace her boots and pull off her sodden socks before crossing the room to place them next to the fire so they would dry out more quickly.

Alone in the room she didn’t mind her own nudity, so she took her time to admire the delicate fabric and almost invisible stitching on the gown before gathering it up above her head. She let the silk fall down her body sensually, covering her completely and caressing her skin like she was diving into water. It was cool to the touch despite the warmth of the room, and it reminded Harry of how the skin of Louis’ finger had felt against her cheek when they were below stairs.

Harry smiled to herself briefly before there was a knock on the door. She let the housekeeper come in and set the tea before the woman left again wishing her a goodnight. There didn’t seem to be any other staff in the house that she could see, but everything was handled with a surprising level of efficiency for it only being two people. Harry decided Louis probably had scullery maids in the kitchen, or more help during the day, or both.

It was impolite of her, she supposed, to try and decipher the structure of the manor’s staff. She and her family were decidedly middle class. They could afford a housekeeper but that was all, so she wasn’t entirely sure how it all worked and what was proper or not.

She poured herself a cup of tea and brought it with her to the bedside. Pulling back the covers on the bed, Harry sighed at their infinite softness. What it must be like to sleep in a bed like this every day.

Harry drew the covers up to her chin, and settled in as if to sleep. 

Unfortunately, she couldn’t quiet the thoughts spinning through her mind. She wondered if Louis would come to bid her goodnight, or if she would ignore her there, thinking she didn’t want to be disturbed. 

That was very much not the case, Harry definitely wanted to be disturbed.

As the clock on the mantle of the hearth ticked marking the minutes, Harry continued to work herself up thinking about where she was at that very moment; vulnerable in this woman’s manor, having invited herself into her domain. If the woman was what Harry thought she was—a vampire—she wondered if the fact that she had come in voluntarily dictated anything in regards to the propriety surrounding Louis’ feeding off her.

The thought of Louis baring her fangs and digging into Harry’s neck was a dangerous path to go down.

She hadn’t gone very far down said path before there was a light knock on the door to her chamber again. It was too light to be the housekeeper or the butler, which meant it must be Louis.

“Come in!” Harry called from her place on the bed. She sat up fully and let the coverlet drop so that it was obvious she was wearing the nightgown Louis had so generously provided for her, and her very reactive nipples were pebbled under the fabric.

Louis entered the chamber before closing the door behind her and leaning against it.

“You’re driving me mad,” she bit out. “I can hear you two storeys away.”

“You can hear my thoughts?” Harry gaped at Louis. She blinked at Louis from her place on the bed and flushed as she cataloged everything that had passed through her brain in the past few minutes. 

“Of course not,” Louis murmured. “But I can hear your heartbeat. It’s impossible to ignore. The loudest thing for miles.”

Harry’s face flamed and she brought one hand up to cover her left breast as if she could quiet her heart from the outside. “Sorry?”

Louis shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut still plastered to the door. Harry was beginning to think she was afraid to move farther in to the chamber.

“It’s not just that. I’m a predator,” her eyes shot open again and they flashed at Harry. “I know you know. I slipped that day,” she added.

Despite how hard Harry was concentrating to try and calm down her traitorous heartbeat, her blood spiked in her veins invitingly as Louis so casually acknowledged what Harry had only guessed. 

“That means my senses are heightened,” Louis said pointedly. Her tone was heavy and loaded but Harry didn’t understand what she was trying to convey.

Finally, Louis pushed herself off the door and approached the bed until she was hovering at the side, silently asking if she could sit on the plush surface of the bedding.

Harry shifted herself over a bit toward the middle of the mattress to make room for her on the edge. Louis sat down and leaned in close, surrounding Harry, shifting all of her weight to her hand next to Harry’s hip, boxing her in even more.

“Everything is clearer to me. Sound, like your heartbeat. Sight, like the way this fabric adheres to your still damp skin. And smell.” Louis paused and oh so lightly inhaled, so imperceptibly Harry might have missed it if they weren’t sitting so close. 

Louis breached the air between them and brushed her lips across Harry’s. When Harry put up no resistance, Louis leaned in again with more urgency behind her movements. This Harry knew, kissing. The boys in the village tried to kiss her sometimes, and a few times she even went along with it out of sheer boredom. None of them set her skin alight the way Louis did. 

Once the fire had banked a bit and settled in her bones, Harry grew more daring. She darted her tongue out lightly, begging to taste Louis. Louis let her in for a hint of a moment until she pulled back abruptly with a groan and pressed her forehead against Harry’s and squeezed her eyes shut. 

“I can smell your arousal, Harry,” she murmured. “I can’t pretend that I don’t feel it in the air.”

Harry gasped. Her first instinct was to cover herself and she leaned back slightly, but Louis’ hand next to her trapped the blanket on top of her body, so she could only rest her hands above the layers of night gown and coverlet.

“I—I’m not sure what you mean,” Harry whispered into the barest amount of space that separated them licking her lips for the damp taste of Louis left behind. It was a lie. She knew exactly what Louis meant. Her arousal had only deepened and she was drowning in it, she could only imagine what Louis’ heightened senses had detected. Her thighs tightened as her core clenched with the idea that Louis knew exactly how affected she was.

Louis swallowed heavily. “Tell me now if you want me to leave, please. You can stay the night in here, leave in the morning, and I’ll never go near you again.”

Harry drew in a sharp breath as she searched her pleading gaze, not bothering to point out that it was she who sought Louis out. She could see that Louis was conflicted. She wanted Harry, but didn’t want to hunt her and scare her.

“Stay,” Harry whispered.

Louis waited one moment, then a second, before she slowly and carefully lifted one hand towards Harry’s left breast where her heart hadn’t calmed down and was still set to rabbit out of her chest.

Louis dragged the barest tip of her finger down the silk from Harry’s shoulder to just above her nipple, hovering a mere half an inch away from it. Her lungs burned as she waited to see what Louis would do. 

After what felt like an eternity, Louis hooked her finger and dragged over the sensitive nub with the edge of her fingertip, sending a brief spark of not-quite-pain through Harry. Her whole body shuddered.

“Well, now,” Louis said before trying again. She started up a steady rhythm, flicking Harry’s nipple with the edge of her finger nail through the silk, watching Harry’s body react each time.

Harry slumped against the pillows behind her and the headboard, relaxing into the flood of warmth she felt each time the sensation struck her and then retreated. 

“Ooh—” she moaned as Louis continued to tease her. 

Finally, the torment stopped. Harry was just about to open her eyes when she felt the dampness of a mouth but it was filtered through the silk of the nightgown. Louis alternated between sucking and nibbling the sensitive skin.

Harry squirmed where she was still trapped by the blankets. “I don’t… Oh,” she bit off. “Are you going to—What are you going to do to me?”

Slowly, Louis lifted herself up and Harry blinked her eyes open. “What would you like?”

“Do you—” Harry didn’t know how to ask what she wanted to ask. “Do you need to… drink? From me?” she stammered.

Louis stilled for a moment. “No, I don’t.” Harry fought the disappointment as her heart began to sink in her chest. “I weaned myself off humans many years ago,” she added.

“Oh.”

“That being said,” Louis smirked. “I haven’t had a proper drink in all that time. If you’re alright with it, I would love to take one from you tonight.”

Harry did her best not to break the heated stare between them. “Yes,” she croaked, not bothering to hide her eagerness.

Louis’ smile spread and she flicked her gaze down to Harry’s neck. “Now where was I?”

To make herself open and available, Harry lifted her chest a bit in hopes that Louis would go back to what she was doing but she was ultimately left abandoned. She couldn’t quite bring herself to be disappointed, though, because instead, Louis whipped the blankets back from the bed.

Using her considerable strength that she must have been consciously concealing, Louis stood up and lifted Harry to her feet. “Oh!” Harry cried out as the nightgown was drawn over her head.

Before she could blink, she was standing naked and exposed in front of Louis. She shivered under Louis’ gaze, but it was certainly not from the chill of the room.

“There you are,” Louis said letting pleasure drip from her voice. “Is this what you wanted? Me to look at you? I saw your frock earlier, it was impossible not to notice it. The way it was plastered to your skin.”

Louis approached her again, letting her finger travel the same path as before but this time on Harry’s other breast, now on bare skin unencumbered by the silk of the nightgown. 

“I saw,” Harry breathed heavily through her nose trying to fight her overwhelming arousal. This _was_ what she wanted. Louis was fully dressed, staring at Harry’s naked form, unable to look away. Her ability to tempt such an otherworldly creature to let go of her control and inhibitions flooded Harry with newfound power. “I saw you go without stays the other day. I wanted to try it. I wasn’t ready. For the rain.”

“And did you like it? Like knowing how little there was between you and the world?”

Harry let her eyelids flutter shut and her head fall back as Louis showed her other nipple the same treatment. _“Yes.”_

Louis leaned down and replaced her finger with her mouth again. This time her teeth scraped across the surface of Harry’s skin with light teasing touches. “Your skin tempts me, every inch of it.” 

She looped her arms around Harry’s waist flattening her palms against the dip of her spine before letting them trail lower and lower. Harry’s hands flew up to Louis’ biceps desperate to hold on, ground herself while the rest of her went flying. The fabric of Louis’ dress scraped Harry’s palms in her tight grip, but Louis stayed clothed even as she lowered herself to the floor, nipping all the way down Harry’s bare torso but never stopping to fulfill the promise of her deadly kiss.

When Louis was finally kneeling on the floor, Harry gripped tightly at her shoulders to maintain her balance.

“Has anyone ever done this for you, pet?”

“Done what?” Harry was surprised at the raspiness of her own voice.

Louis smirked and lifted Harry’s right leg, placing her foot so that just the tips of her toes pressed against the mattress of the bed next to them leaving Harry completely open and exposed to the night air, exposed to Louis who was staring up at her with a hunger in her eyes that grew deeper and deeper in the candlelight.

Reaching up, Louis took the same devastating finger she had been using and touched the pad of it to the light hair dusting Harry’s pubic mound in silent question. The skin of Louis’ finger was cool to the touch, and Harry hadn’t noticed it as much on her already chilled breasts, but there at her warmest point, it proved a stark contrast that left her body confused and aching for more of the sensation.

“Oh—” Harry’s breath caught in her throat as Louis curled her fingers into the hair there and tugged a bit piercing Harry with more of the pleasurable sort of pain she had never felt before. She was losing herself in an onslaught of new feeling, and just barely remembered that Louis had asked her a question. “N—No. No one has done this for me. Except me. I’ve touched myself.” 

She blushed when she realized she had revealed her deepest, darkest secret like it was nothing.

Louis turned her face into Harry’s thigh and hummed. “I would love to see that some time,” she murmured as she flattened her finger against Harry’s skin and dragged it down until she separated Harry’s folds and hit the bundle of nerves there.

The leg Harry was standing on buckled as Louis flattened the rest of her cool fingertips against her and began to rub in deft circles. _“Louis,”_ she cried. 

Thankfully Louis was quick enough and strong enough that she caught Harry at her hip and kept her upright before she could go anywhere, or tumble onto the floor in a heap of exposed nerve endings.

“Ah, careful, pet. You’ll have to stay upright,” Louis teased.

Harry swallowed down a whine at Louis’ condition. The muscles in her calf tensed as she kept her other foot up on the edge of the bed.

“Hands behind your back,” Louis whispered as she watched Harry try and set her balance.

Harry didn’t ask questions, she simply unclenched her hands from Louis’ shoulders and twisted them behind her into a grip tight enough that it would prevent her from disobeying Louis’ orders. Her breasts were thrust out into the chill of the room and her nipples puckered into dusty pink buds in front of her.

As soon as she was set, Louis ducked her head and lathed her tongue across the same path her fingers had followed. Harry gasped loudly in the quiet room and tensed every muscle she had to try and keep herself standing. This, whatever this was, was entirely new. 

Because of who she was, there wasn’t any added warmth to Louis’ lips and tongue, but Harry was plenty warm there, and the way she moved her mouth, manipulating Harry’s body until all she felt was pleasure from every angle, was distraction enough.

Harry’s muscles trembled as she tried to stay standing. Her eyes drifted shut as she concentrated on the way her body felt and tried to control her balance. 

Every time Louis’ tongue moved she had to start all over again. Her pleasure was mounting, the way it did when she was alone, but it felt like this time it was sneaking up on her in a way. Usually she just had herself to concentrate on, alone in her meadow or at home in the bath, but now she could feel everything. Instead of just a flash of pleasure, she could already feel her release deep in her bones.

She could hear the noises coming out with every exhale, knew she was getting too loud, but could do nothing to stop it as the feeling mounted.

“Louis,” she cried out again and even to her own ears she sounded overwhelmed and the smallest bit afraid of the wave that she could feel building.

“That’s it, pet,” Louis said, her lips still wrapped around the nerves at Harry’s center, nudging her closer to the edge with each syllable. “Let go,” she added as she nudged at Harry’s entrance with a finger. Instead of slowly and carefully nudging Harry into something new the way she had been all evening, Louis plunged her finger in right away. The coolness of her skin was again a jolt as Harry pulsed around her. As she worked in and out of Harry, she brought a second finger up to join the first. From the outside she could feel Louis flattening her tongue against her and increasing the pressure as she filled Harry with her fingers.

Harry felt a burning sensation on her arms where her nails were digging into her own skin trying to hold on to herself. Her voice was hoarse as she cried out chasing her release that was just out of reach.

Louis kept pistoning her fingers in and out of Harry’s core but the sensation of her mouth went away. Harry opened her eyes and looked down in alarm, but when she did she watched as Louis’ pupils grew impossibly wider and darker, and heard the click of her eye teeth as they lengthened into her fangs. She only saw them for the briefest of moments before Louis pressed her mouth to her once again. 

Even though Louis had yet to bite her, that was all it took to send Harry over the edge. She couldn’t help the way she curled in on herself for the briefest of moments before her back arched and she had to bend her knee to keep herself from toppling over.

Louis’ touch didn’t ease up, dragging her body through the aftershocks, wringing her of every last pleasure until she finally couldn’t hold herself up any more.

Harry slumped, expecting to hit the hard wood of the floor, but Louis managed to catch her again, under her arms this time. She leaned down and lifted Harry off the floor under her knees and placed her gently on the bed. Harry couldn’t believe she had done all of that without tangling herself in her dress.

Louis was still wearing her frock, still completely clothed. The vulnerability of being naked in the presence of someone else who wasn’t shot through Harry like a live wire, but she couldn’t do anything but lay on the bed with her limp limbs spread wide.

When she looked up to see why Louis had been so quiet, she saw her slowly undoing her own laces.

She smirked when their gazes met. “It’s my turn, pet. If you’re good, I may just let you feel what we both have been missing out on.”

It was enigmatic enough to confuse Harry, but she couldn’t bring herself to care much as she floated in her own bliss. Louis’ fangs were still down and her eyes were still pitch black, any traces of blue evaporated in the dim light and heightened lust.

Harry lay prone as she watched Louis slowly uncover her lithe form. Dress tossed to the side, Louis climbed up until her knees were bracketing Harry’s ribs, the excess of cool skin surrounding her making her gasp in shock. She brought her hands up to Louis’ hips, reaching to steady her and touch her more intimately than she had been able to so far. 

The biggest shock was the wetness where Louis’ center pressed against Harry’s taut abdomen. Harry didn’t know what she had been expecting, but she supposed in that way, Louis’ body reacted the way a human’s would.

Louis drew her hand up and combed away some of Harry’s curls that had come loose from where she had tied her hair back earlier. She drew her hand down and held Harry’s chin with her forefinger and thumb.

“Remember what I said. _If_ you’re good, you can have what you want.”

Harry sucked in a breath. Louis still had not taken her drink. She had seemed enthusiastic enough about it, but had she changed her mind? Harry’s pulse quickened as Louis kneed off of her and turned around.

It took until she was swinging her legs over Harry’s head and all Harry could see was an expanse of the most beautiful, plush, round skin for Harry to truly understand what she was doing.

She wanted, needed, to get her mouth on Louis the way Louis had just done for her. Eager in her anticipation, when Louis stopped moving backwards Harry began squirming down to try and meet her halfway. Louis laughed and held firm, so Harry strained her neck to see if she was close enough, but her center was hovering there, tantalizing and woefully out of reach.

“Relax, pet, you’ll get your chance.”

Finally, when she deemed it time, Louis shifted back towards Harry’s mouth and lowered herself down. 

Harry gulped in a deep breath as Louis came closer and closer but still stopped just above where she could reach. This time when she craned her neck she was able to brush her lips against the crease of Louis’ thigh, and couldn’t help but tentatively lick out to taste her. 

When Louis didn’t tease her again by pulling away, Harry took that to be an allowance. She had never done anything like this before, but she breathed deeply and licked along Louis’ folds again.

“That’s it,” Louis encouraged. 

Harry hooked her hands around Louis’ thighs to anchor herself. As she became more comfortable and started to settle into a steady, even pace she became more and more emboldened.

She was so concentrated on Louis above her, surrounding her, suffocating her in the best way, she lost all awareness of what Louis was doing. That was until Louis leaned down and began trailing her lips across the tops of Harry’s thighs. Her legs were pressed together, but at Louis’ insistent touch, she began to spread them, exposing herself to Louis once again.

In turn, Louis began to mimic what Harry was doing to her. If she provided the pleasure to Louis, she was also providing it to herself in a heady cycle of arousal that was quickly reawakening the unquenchable thirst within her.

More and more the world around her disappeared and all she could focus on was Louis in front of her and the way she tasted. She wanted the way Louis’ thighs quivered around her ears to be permanently etched in her mind.

The higher she took Louis, the higher she took herself. There was a faint noise that hovered just above the sound of blood pounding in her ears that she began to notice more and more until she realized it was Louis moaning in response to what she was doing. 

Not only had Harry tempted the powerful, otherworldly creature that was Louis, she was also able to reciprocate everything that she had done earlier and bring her the same release. 

As that thought floated through her mind, she unclenched a hand from her grip around Louis’ thigh and brought it down to tease her with her fingers as well.

Louis’ gasping breaths quickened as she finally lifted her head up and cried out her release.

Still chasing her own pleasure, Harry couldn’t stop caressing Louis’ center with her lips and tongue addicted to the taste and the power that came with sending her over the edge. She could feel her second release just out of reach and whined in frustration that Louis had stopped touching her.

Her movements much more lethargic now, Louis dragged her hand back and began rubbing Harry quickly, ratcheting up her pleasure so quickly that she yelped in alarm.

She was so close, she could feel it building again, she just needed something more. “Please, please, _please_ ,” she begged into the silken skin of Louis’ thigh, her tears leaving tracks of wetness where her cheek pressed against it.

“Anything, pet,” Louis growled, continuing to strum her fingers over Harry’s center.

The sudden pain pierced through Harry bright and sharp, so strong that it took her a moment to pinpoint exactly where it was emanating from within her body.

Louis had bitten her inner thigh and was beginning to drink from her. Her veins and limbs pulsed like when she came out from the cold and she stood by the fire to warm up. Only this time there was a sinister edge to it, her veins were expanding and contracting as Louis took what she needed.

Harry cried out as the pain reached its zenith sure she could stand no more, but just as she did, her pleasure returned matching in equal measure the intensity of the pain. That was to say, with an intensity Harry had never experienced before ever in her life, beyond even what Louis had done to her not thirty minutes earlier as she knelt down on the floor and gave Harry everything.

Harry’s lungs burned as she buried her face in Louis’ thigh and her abdominal muscles spasmed with the ebb and flow of the pleasure. Her grip tightened even more on Louis’ thighs, her nails digging in leaving behind white half moons everywhere she touched. If Louis could bleed, Harry was sure she would have drawn blood.

Only the pleasure remained as she felt Louis break the seal, pulling away so that she could lave her tongue across Harry’s skin. She was done, but Harry was still riding the blissful tide of her release. Gasping for breath, Harry stared up at the ornate lace canopy over the bed. Her vision began to blur around the edges and the world grew darker and darker as she succumbed to the abyss.

When Harry awoke, the sun was streaming through the windows and she was nestled in a cloud of blankets. Louis was propped up on her elbow lightly combing her fingers through Harry’s hair with a gentle, rhythmic touch.

“Good morning,” Harry murmured.

Louis’ expression lightened slowly as her grin spread. “It is, isn’t it?” she replied, her voice a whisper to match Harry’s.

There was something different about her, Harry could tell. There was a brightness to her eyes that Harry had never seen before; they were an exquisite icy clear blue. 

Her mind was still slow and syrupy after everything that had happened the night before, but as she thought it through she came to understand. Louis was a predator, Harry her prey. There was a reason she needed to drink from her, and presumably a reason she hadn’t had what she called a “proper” drink in quite some time.

Harry reached up to touch her cheekbone just underneath Louis’ long, beautiful eyelashes smudged against her skin. Louis turned and nuzzled into her hand.

“How long have you been depriving yourself?”

Louis stilled her movements, and Harry wished she could swallow the words and pull them back from ever having entered the calm of the morning. But remarkably, Louis relaxed and resumed her soothing touches after a moment.

“A very long time, pet. It’s dangerous for me and whomever I’m drinking from.”

Something dark bloomed in the depths of Harry’s stomach as she thought about Louis sharing the incredible experience they had the night before with anyone else.

Louis must have read her silence as worry for her own safety. “You were different. I didn’t lure you under false pretenses. I didn’t have to hunt you.” She traced across Harry’s hairline and down the bridge of her nose before tapping the end of it emphatically. “You did all the luring and hunting for the both of us.”

Harry blushed and buried herself further in the coverlet. Yes, she had done that, hadn’t she. Though, to a certain extent, she never would have pursued Louis if she had not met her first. She could have been mesmerized, lured—whatever Louis wanted to call it—then, when they originally crossed paths. But it wasn’t worth belaboring the point.

“I should send word to my mother than I am alright,” Harry said, disrupting the morning stillness once again.

“Yes,” Louis sighed. “You should.”

“Unless I contracted a horrible sickness in the rain and must stay?” Harry asked hopefully.

Louis laughed, leaning down to kiss the tip of her nose. “No, my darling. You must go for now. But there is nothing to say you cannot come back now that you know how to find me.”

Harry pouted. “Only, Tarnstowe is so very far away,” she drew out exaggeratedly. 

Once again Louis seemed to be charmed by her antics. “Well, it might not hurt to delay until the afternoon. The roads are so very wet and dangerous right now.”

Harry cheered and flopped ungracefully over Louis’ body, knocking her over until she was flat underneath her with her back pressed into the mattress. She became aware that they were pressed from shoulder to toe against each other, and they were both still so very naked. 

As their laughter died down and Harry tried to fight the urge to roll herself against Louis’ cool skin until her nipples were teased to attention, Louis reached up to fix Harry’s hair again where it had been displaced.

“If we were to come up with an excuse for you to stay here with me, is that something you would like?” Louis asked, a new vulnerability in her gaze that Harry had never seen before. She wanted Harry to stay, but only if Harry agreed. “Will your mother allow you to leave?”

Harry flicked her gaze down to Louis’ lips and inhaled deeply, feeling the head rush of her newfound sense of freedom. She leaned down and sealed their lips together chastely for the briefest of moments before pulling back. “I don’t see that she has much of a say in the matter.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Here is the [fic post](https://becomeawendybird.tumblr.com/post/186220968286/withdrawal-was-the-weeping-by-quickedween-e-11k) if you would like to reblog it.


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